


In Hot Water

by terma_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-01
Updated: 2002-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terma_archivist/pseuds/terma_archivist
Summary: Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atTER/MAand was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address onthe TER/MA collection profile.Warning: Mildly nonconsensual. Sort of.
Relationships: Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder
Kudos: 2
Collections: TER/MA





	1. In Hot Water

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [TER/MA](https://fanlore.org/wiki/TER/MA) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the TER/MA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/terma/profile).  
> Warning: Mildly nonconsensual. Sort of.

  
**In Hot Water  
by moco**

  
Mulder's breath puffed out in white clouds as he ran up the curving road past the lodge where he and his diminutive partner had spent the night. "It will be a short run," he thought, as the high elevation seared icy air painfully through his lungs. He easily could run for an hour or more in D.C., but running uphill more than seven thousand feet above sea level was another story. 

Plus, it was cold. Damned cold. 

He struggled for every step, never quite catching the rhythm that normally let his subconscious do its spooky magic when he was on a tough case. When dry, icy flakes began to sting his face, he gave up, turned around and headed back down to the lodge and warmth. 

Running downhill, he found, was not much easier than running uphill and was harder on the knees to boot. The snow, coming fast and furious, was slick, and he slid, almost falling, pulling a muscle on the inside of one thigh. 

Fox Mulder was winded, sore and thoroughly chilled by the time he hobbled into the lobby at the Indian Springs Lodge. 

"I need a shower," he panted at the early morning desk clerk. A large evangelical gathering of fundamentalists had taken over the nearby gambling towns of Black Hawk and Central City (Keno for Christ), spilling over into the neighboring mountain towns and leaving nothing for rent in Idaho Springs but one of the older rooms at the historic Indian Springs Lodge. It consisted of a squeaky bed, a toilet and a sink. No shower. Not for the first time, Mulder fervently wished they'd driven the 30 miles back to Denver. 

"I know it's only 30 miles, Mulder," Dana Scully had told him at midnight, "but it takes an hour and a half to get there! We're staying." And he'd been too tired to argue. Dammit. 

On the upside, Scully didn't take up too much room. Downside? She snored. 

Mulder's insomniac tendencies woke him up well before dawn. Since there was no television in the room and nowhere to read without waking Dana — the bathroom was so small his knees hit the sink when he sat on the toilet — he gave up and went running. 

"Please," he gasped at the clerk, teeth chattering as he sucked in air, bent over, hands on knees. 

"You poor thing," she clucked at him. "You're not used to the altitude, are you?" When he shook his head, she continued. "You need to start slow. Altitude sickness is nothing to fool with. People die. You don't have high blood pressure or a heart condition do you?" 

"Not 'til now," he said straightening up with a grimace. 

She grinned, altogether too cheerful for the ungodly hour. "Let me guess. You're from somewhere flat and humid." 

"Washington," he told her, putting on his best kicked-puppy face. 

"Well, you're in Colorado now. And not only isn't there any moisture in our air, there's damned little air in the air." She laughed heartily at her own joke while stacking a folded towel, washcloth and little packets of—thank you, Jesus—shampoo and conditioner on the counter. "Darlin', you need a long soak, then a shower and a good breakfast. Lots of carbs. Lots and lots of water." She shook a finger at him when he made a face. "Water. Coffee and soda don't count. Into the caves with you now. They don't really open for another hour, but this is medicinal." 

"Caves?" 

"Geothermal pools, cut right into the mountain. Downstairs and to your left. That's the men's. Get in there and peel off those nasty sweats before you catch your death. Follow the arrow that says 'Caves' and pick out a pool to your liking. They get hotter as you go farther in. I'd recommend the large communal pool unless you're used to it. Just sit and soak until you're warm clear through and your bones stop hurting. Then you'll be more'n ready to kick ass the rest of the day." 

Mulder looked at her helplessly. All he wanted was a shower. "I didn't bring a suit," he said. "I'll just use the shower if there is one." 

She shook her head. "Soak naked. Trust me on this." 

He sighed and picked up the towels. "Then can I shower?" 

"Yes. And you can thank me later." 

Mulder frowned at her and went for the stairs. They were as squeaky as his bed had been. 

He was unprepared for the blast of hot, humid air that hit him as soon as opened the door marked "Men's." The air seemed thick, with an underlying tang of minerals he tasted at the back of his throat. He considered just showering and going about his business, but this early, there was nothing to do. He couldn't even study the case files without waking Scully, the kitchen didn't open for another hour and the only television he'd seen anywhere was in the bar, which also didn't open until 7 a.m. He might as well follow instructions and soak. 

The dressing room was shabby but clean. The lockers, such as they were, looked salvaged from some high school locker room and were painted a garish orange and blue. "Bronco colors," he thought. "This is Colorado after all." No locks, but he doubted anyone would want his well-worn sweats, even if there was anyone else about. 

The sitting room was more of the same, sans lockers with long wooden benches against each wall, polished to a high sheen by decades of bare, sweaty butts. He followed the arrows marked "caves" and noted the other warnings: No swimsuits, glass, alcohol, oil or loofahs; no loud talking or inappropriate behavior—in that order? he wondered; not recommended for pregnant women or persons with high blood pressure, heart problems or under the influence of alcohol or meds. The Colorado statute against lewd and lascivious behavior was posted in its entirety and repeated, he assumed, in Chinese. 

Condensed moisture beaded the ceiling, dripping slowly but continuously down on the carpeted floor. "Wonder if it's the minerals in the water that keep everything from mildewing," he thought, since there wasn't the slightest scent of mold anywhere. 

The arrows led him to a glass-windowed door that was too steamy to see through. He opened it slowly, peering tentatively inside. Steam assailed him. Squinting, he entered the caves. 

They were, indeed, cut into the rock, and Mulder felt like Bilbo under the mountain or one of the dwarves mining for precious stones. It took very little imagination—and Fox Mulder had more than his share—to turn the glittering bits of mica in the granite walls to gems, and the hiss and gurgle of the constantly flowing hot springs into the snore and rumble of a sleeping dragon. 

The dim lighting was, well, spooky and gave the cave a gothic feel. A frisson of unease tickled his stomach. Silly, he thought. Where was the danger to be found, here, this early in the morning? 

Mulder eased himself into the first and largest pool, thinking of the desk clerk's warning about the temperature increasing the farther back one went. This one felt like a hot bath, and Mulder couldn't imagine the heat of the farthest pool. He climbed down the steps cut into the pool and ended with water hitting him mid-chest. He seated himself in a far corner, his weight supported by his arms on either side of him and the buoyancy of the water. As much as he hated to admit it, the desk clerk was right. It was heavenly. Lovely. 

The heat went beyond soothing. The slightly metallic odor, somehow meditative, put him into that fugue state he'd searched for but failed to find during his run. He could even feel the pulled muscle calming itself, the discomfort easing. 

While the bulk of Mulder's mind concentrated on the case at hand, the rest of it kept note of the drip, gurgle and hiss of the hot springs. He was slightly surprised, although not alarmed, when the door to the caves opened and a towel-clad figure strolled in. Another poor schmuck with no shower in his room, Mulder thought idly. The newcomer walked with his head down, a towel over his head, as if he were trying to capture the steam for a facial. He nodded in Mulder's direction, then shed the towel around his waist and entered the large pool to settle in the corner opposite Mulder's. He kept the towel over his head. 

Strange, thought Mulder, just as the lights went out. "Shit!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet. The dark was total, like nothing he'd ever experienced. Panic rose in his throat like bile, and he screamed—a high-pitched, admittedly girly scream—when a strong, wet arm encircled his throat and something hard poked him in the small of his back. 

"Shhh, Mulder," said a familiar husky voice. "You don't want the management to think that their big, brave fibbie's afraid of the dark now, do you?" 

"Jesus Christ, Krycek! Just shoot me, will you? You don't have to scare me to death!" Relief subsumed the usual rage Alex Krycek made him feel. "What the hell are you doing here anyway?" 

"Heard you and the good doctor were pokin' around, so I thought I'd just stop in and say 'howdy.'" 

"Howdy?" 

"When in the west, Mulder." 

"Yeah, whatever. What the hell do you have sticking in my back, Krycek?" he asked, trying to squirm away from whatever it was. 

"My weapon," Alex purred. Mulder could almost hear the smirk. 

"Fuck." 

"My thought exactly." 

"Oh, no..." Mulder really tried to squirm away, but the arm around his throat just tightened its hold, making it hard to breathe. 

"Oh, yeah..." A tongue slid into his left ear, swirled around and then left, leaving Mulder awash in gooseflesh and lust. "Might as well bow to the inevitable," the whispery voice said. "Or in your case, bend." With that, Krycek bumped his knee into the backs of Mulder's, forcing the tall agent to kneel on the rock seat he'd just been sitting on. 

"Don't do this, Alex," Mulder pleaded, praying hard to a god he didn't believe in for both light and deliverance. "Please. I hate you." He repeated it softly, begging, "I hate you." 

"But you want it so much," Krycek said, biting his shoulder and bringing his free hand around to grasp Mulder's cock. "And I do it so good." He bit again and stroked Mulder, milking him slowly. Biting hard enough to make Mulder gasp, Alex used his body to force Mulder to bend until his chest rested on the side of the pool. Alex removed his arm from around Mulder's throat, but kept his hand there, squeezing just enough. "I know what you like, baby," he cooed, milking and squeezing, adding painful little bites here and there for seasoning. 

Mulder tried to scream when he came, but the hand on his throat kept the sound inside. He saw light finally, silvery shooting stars firing from his brain like rockets over the Potomac on the Fourth of July, just before he fainted from the lack of air. 

When he came to, the hand at his throat was gone, but there was a burning pressure in his ass. "Hurts," he whispered to the dark. 

"It's supposed to," came the answer. "Go with the pain," the husky voice said, "accept it. Love it." 

Mulder whimpered with loss when the cock in his ass slid out, then gasped in shock as it slammed back in. Krycek set a punishing pace, ramming Mulder's chest against the side of the rough-hewn pool, until the burning pain in his ass and the scraping pain on his chest short circuited into pleasure. He was hard again and close to coming. Too soon! he thought. I can't come again this soon. Then Krycek was convulsing against his back, screaming "Fox" over and over, sobbing for breath. 

The absence of pain in his ass compounded the pain in his overly hard cock. "You're under arrest," he rasped out at the collapsed body clinging to his back and had to smile in the dark when he felt the chuckles. 

"You can handcuff me some other time," said the voice from the dark. "Turn around now and sit on the edge." 

"Why?" 

"So I can suck you off." 

The words themselves were almost enough to send him over, and Mulder wanted to swear, but he couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. The worst words he knew were totally inadequate. "You have to move," he said to the weight on his back. 

Again he felt the smile. "Knew there was a catch." Then all restraints were gone. Left by himself in the total dark, Mulder didn't know what to do, except to turn around and hoist himself up onto the side of the pool and hope for the best. 

He felt the water move, then felt the body kneeling on the ledge between his knees. He moaned when something bit the inside of his thigh, the pain a lovely burst. He wanted Alex to suck at the flesh there, to mark him, but wouldn't ask. He could beg to be fucked, but not to be marked. Not by Krycek. "Please," was the only entreaty he allowed himself, and Alex, misinterpreting the request, engulfed Mulder's staff. It was weird, being sucked in the dark like this. Intellectually, he knew it was Krycek going down on him, could picture the lovely mouth and dark too-thick lashes. But it took a total leap of faith to actually believe it. Maybe it was really some alien clone with Krycek's voice. A many tenacled monster sucking at his very essence. Maybe he'd gone insane in the dark and he was actually alone in this warm, wet cavern, buried alive. Maybe he was dead and this just some existentialist form of hell, a heavenly hell where he'd be pleasured throughout eternity by a voice he hated and a form he couldn't see. 

"Oh, god, Alex," he prayed and came again, pumping his wad into the back of what he knew to be Krycek's pretty, pretty throat. 

"You're welcome," said the darkness, and then it kissed him, tasting of semen and salt and Alex. And then it was gone. 

Mulder sat motionless for a long moment, listening to the pad of bare feet on wet rock. He sighed when the sound faded, feeling absurdly bittersweet and wondered if he could find his way out of the caves in the dark. The dim lights, when they flickered suddenly back on, seemed painfully bright. He smiled finally, at Krycek's skill and timing. It didn't take a leap of faith for him to know that the power outage was no accident. He waited longer than he was sure he needed to before leaving, not wanting to chance another meeting with his archenemy and wayward lover. 

* * *

"Mulder, the altitude must agree with you," Dana Scully said around a mouthful of toast. "I haven't seen you look so relaxed in months." 

"It's the water," he smiled. "You really ought to try it." 

END...

* * *

Rating: NC17 for smutty sex between men   
Warning: Mildly nonconsensual. Sort of.   
Feedback: [email removed]   
Spoilers: None that I can tell: Krycek's a rat and has two arms.   
Disclaimers: Characters aren't mine. They make me no money, and I returned them undamaged. The Indian Springs Lodge isn't mine either but, unlike our two heroes, is real. I highly recommend it.   
This is just a simple pwp that came to me as I soaked, naked and horny, during a recent weekend in the hills.   
---


	2. Mud In Your Eye

  
**Mud in your Eye  
by moco**

  
Another damn frustrating day. Tired, and not a little disgusted with his inability to get a handle on this latest case, Special Agent Fox Mulder unlocked the door to his room. He looked forward to the shower, washing away the stench of the latest deaths. He almost missed the postcard on the floor. 

He pulled his gun and searched, but there was no one in the room. The postcard, a photo of the Idaho Springs Visitors Center complete with its statue of the 1940's comic book hero Steve Canyon, had been slipped under the door. Using his handkerchief to pick it up—carefully—by a corner, Mulder turned it over to read the message. 

"3 a.m. Lodge porch." 

He closed his eyes and felt his cock harden. Mulder knew the handwriting. 

He'd begun to hate the Colorado mountains. After three weeks of clean air, clear starlit nights, Friday rockabilly and limited cable, he was ready to maim. He didn't care how golden the fucking aspens were. 

At least he was no longer sharing a room with Scully. 

They'd come to Colorado to investigate a series of apparently unrelated murders. The total thus far was thirteen. Each victim was found within a 25-mile radius of the little town of Idaho Springs, located some 30 miles west of Denver along the I-70 corridor. The victims were so unrelated as to be impossible to predict. Their only commonality seemed to be the universal feeling that each one deserved to die. 

It was rather refreshing, as serial murders went. For once in a Violent Crimes investigation, Fox Mulder felt no anguish for the innocent. He was plagued with no nightmares, nor stomach problems, nor migraines. 

The first victim was a Chicago pimp known to have beaten four women to death—known, but never proven. The second, a minor evangelist from Hoboken, specialized in "healing" people who'd been handicapped on the job right out of their savings and settlements. The latest, latest _two_ , were a couple of middle-age foster parents out of Orange County, California, who ran a lucrative Internet business selling customized child porn. 

It was tough to conjure up much outrage over someone ridding the world of monsters. 

Mulder had requested the case. While not an X-File, it was intriguing. Scully agreed. Why would a professional—and the murders were professional, one bullet to the back of each head, execution style—use the same gun each time and transport the bodies cross-country to this area? Was he someone whose work sent him through here regularly? If so, why not dump the bodies closer to where they were first abducted and killed? If he were trying to confuse the investigations, why use the same gun every time? 

Mulder couldn't get a handle on the perp. He or she didn't seem to fit any profile for either serial killers or vigilantes. Most serial killers picked victims according to type—big-breasted blondes, for example, or 15-year-old black boys—and vigilantes tended to be territorial, cleaning up their own nests, so to speak. This one crossed the country, always ending up _here_. Or close to here, at least. 

It was a puzzlement. 

He'd poured over the forensic evidence from these last two while Scully performed the autopsies in Denver. Nothing new, nothing definitive, no emerging patterns. 

Frustrating. 

At least he was becoming acclimated to the altitude. His morning runs no longer resembled torture, although he still finished up with long soaks in the hotel's hot springs. His first run here had been horribly painful; the thin air made his lungs hurt, it'd begun snowing and he'd slipped on the wet clay on the side of the road, pulling a muscle. 

Luckily, the early morning desk clerk took pity on him, after a concerned lecture on altitude poisoning, and unlocked the door to the men's geothermal caves, directing him to soak and get warm. He'd complied, letting the hot, mineral-rich water loosen his muscles and soothe his bones. Then the lights had gone out, and he was joined by a traitorous, sexy-voiced thug who'd all but crushed his windpipe before bending him over and fucking him senseless. 

And then the bastard had blown him. 

Mulder could still remember that intense orgasm, brought on as it was by a mouth he couldn't see and a man he couldn't resist. A man he'd always told himself he hated. 

Three frustrating weeks later, he was no closer to the killer and had seen no further sign of Alex Krycek. Until now. 

Three weeks, most of which were spent having to share a shower-and-television-less room with his partner, whom he loved dearly but who snored like a lumberjack. Three weeks of frustration and want, time enough to face the fact that he didn't hate Alex Krycek. Quite the opposite, and _that's_ what he hated. 

Thanking the universe for cancelled reservations and more modern rooms, he relieved himself in the shower, not wanting to sit through dinner with a hard-on. It didn't take long, and he cried when he came, grief he didn't understand coursing through him like ejaculate. 

Scully had developed a taste for buffalo chili, so they went to the Buffalo Bar in downtown Idaho Springs, driving the few blocks because it was starting to snow. 

When Scully started to order a glass of wine with dinner, Mulder uncharacteristically changed it to a bottle. If she noticed his distraction, or that he drank everything but her one glass of wine, she didn't comment. Mulder was grateful. He thought that if she made the smallest of remarks, _everything_ would come pouring out. 

Dinner didn't last near long enough. There were still more than four hours until his rendezvous with Krycek. Assuming it was really a rendezvous and not the set up to another betrayal. He almost hoped for the latter. Betrayal he could deal with. It was hope that gave him problems. 

Mulder turned over the car keys wordlessly when Scully held out her hand. She had noticed. 

Back in his room, he could do nothing but brood. The storm made television reception nonexistent and he couldn't face the country band in the bar. He was afraid that he might actually start to like it. Or, more likely, drink too much. He was already over his limit. 

He tried to work on the case, going over the crime scene photos and forensic results. No good. Each monstrous victim appeared to be wearing black jeans and leather. The more he stared at the photos, the more they all resembled Alex Krycek. 

Now there's a thought. If someone was hunting monsters, wouldn't Krycek make the perfect victim? Traitor and assassin. Thug-for-hire. Liar. Lover. 

Lover. 

The thought made something tickle at the nether side of his brain. A theory...some skittish idea that peaked out then hid. Mulder shook his head. It left before he could grasp it. Closing his eyes, he sighed. It'd come back when it was ready; if he tried to pursue it, it'd hide forever. 

Lover. That wouldn't hide. It was imprinted on his brain in bright neon letters. Blinking, bright neon letters. 

He'd come to terms with his sexuality years ago. Hell, he'd mostly ignored it. His interpersonal relationships, male and female, were normally so disastrous that he'd happily settled for his strong right hand. 

Until he met Alex Krycek. Krycek pushed his buttons. All of them. Then the bastard betrayed him, betrayed them all. And still Mulder obsessed about him. In their encounters, when Mulder had the upper hand, they fought and Alex lost. When Alex had the upper hand, they fucked, and Mulder won. 

He tried calling it rape the first time Krycek forced him into a blinding climax. The same with all their subsequent skirmishes as well, until he found himself masturbating to those memories. His innate honesty disallowed that excuse; he could only lie to himself for so long. Then he called it seduction, and knew that for a lie, also. 

Half past the witching hour and the television cleared. Mulder inwardly cheered, hoping for something good on MonsterVision. "Ghost Busters." It wasn't porn, but it'd do. 

* * *

The yowling woke him. Sounds of a cat victorious from the hunt raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Flickering shadows cast by the glow of the television showed a parading feline, long-tailed prey dangling from its jaws. Mulder watched entranced as the shadow-beast stalked toward him, dropping its spoils near the foot of his bed. The cat disappeared only to return with another victim, then another and another, the pile of rodents growing to an obscene mound. 

Atavistic fear kept Mulder flattened on the bed until, heart pounding, he forced himself up to inspect the pile of dead things. Crawling to the foot of the bed, he bent to look, then cried out, recoiling in horror. They weren't mice after all. Mutated things, rather. Some eyeless, two-headed. Alien. Wrong. 

The yowling increased, and the shadow grew until it covered one wall and part of the ceiling. As it grew, it too changed, distorting out of a feline shape into something more pointed. Narrower, almost bipedal, the snout elongated and twitching. 

It yowled, high-pitched and wailing, looming over Mulder as if he were to be its next victim. 

* * *

Mulder woke with a start, heart pounding. The cable was out again, roaring snow filling the screen, and he could hear the wind howl outside, making his windows shudder and wine. 

A surge of adrenaline hit him, and he grabbed his travel alarm. Two-thirty. He hadn't missed the rendezvous after all. 

At a quarter till, Mulder gave up trying to wait. He pulled a sweater on over his turtleneck and stomped into heavy boots. The snow had stopped, but he'd gotten as many lectures on hypothermia and the wind-chill factor as he had on altitude sickness. The debate on whether to carry a gun and, if so, how many, took 10 minutes to resolve. He decided on one gun, then had to choose which one. If he ended up killing Krycek, would he want to use a cold gun so he cold ditch the body and be done with it, or use his own Bureau weapon so he could shout it to the heavens, pointing out, 'Look what I did, look what I did'? 

In the end he took them both. This was Alex Krycek he was meeting after all. 

At five till, he walked across the road to the main Lodge. The front door was unlocked, he knew, for any late returning guests. But no one was on duty, and wouldn't be, for another three hours. 

Mulder breathed in air that was so cold and dry it hurt. The clouds of a few hours past were history, leaving a jeweled sky crowded with tiny points of light. Nothing like this existed in the cities he was used to, not even the skies of his childhood were so overcrowded with watching stars. Watching, and waiting. 

Mulder shivered there on the porch, as much from the aftermath of his nightmare and a bereft feeling of being alien and alone as from the cold. He stood in the dark cold for the five minutes until it was 3 a.m. straight up, searching the shadows for movement or life. Then five more minutes, then another five, and another. 

At a quarter after, he muttered "fuck this," stamped feeling back into his feet so he could walk and took one step back toward the road. 

"You've got more patience than I gave you credit for," one of the shadows spoke. "I'd wouldn't have thought you'd last four minutes, tops." 

Mulder stifled a yell as the shadow detached itself from the corner of the porch and moved toward him. He suppressed the urge to draw his gun, saying instead, "What fresh new hell is this, Krycek?" 

The shadow, now illuminated by the porch light, raised its eyebrows and bent its head, indicating Mulder should follow. 

"Want to know what my favorite Dorothy Parker quote is?" asked Krycek as they walked the wooden bridge over the creek. 

"I'm astounded you recognized that as a quote, let alone who said it." 

Alex snorted. "I'm not Oxford educated, Mulder, but I _am_ educated." 

Mulder's turn to snort, but he otherwise kept silent, following Krycek down the path parallel to the creek to the end of the long Quonset hut-type structure that elled off the main Lodge and housed the hot springs-fed swimming pool and banquet room. 

"You got me out here to break into the swimming pool?" Mulder asked incredulously when Krycek crossed back over the creek and up the steps to the pool's back door. 

Krycek shook his head. "Got a key," he said opening the door. They entered the humid heat of the dark banquet room, the tall tropical plants casting weirdly monstrous shadows from the moonlight coming in through the translucent fiberglass dome. It was the only light. 

"Why are we here?" Mulder was edgy, waiting for, for what? They had yet to trade blows, or even insults. No weapons had been drawn—his two guns were beginning to seem superfluous—and this didn't seem like the place for an ambush. 

"Keep your voice down. We don't want to get caught." 

"Caught doing what?" 

Krycek grinned, looking suddenly like a bad little boy with a secret rather than the lethal operative Mulder knew him for. "Taking a mud bath." 

"A mud—" Mulder snapped his mouth shut. He wouldn't ask the obvious. "So what is it?" he said instead. 

"What's what?" 

"Your favorite Dorothy Parker quote." 

The grin widened. "Take your clothes off, and I'll tell you." He spoke so low he was hardly audible, but Mulder's cock heard, and started to harden. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing his brain to stop. He couldn't think about what was happening here. 

He was motionless for so long that Krycek whispered in his ear, "Would it help if I held a weapon on you?" 

Mulder shook himself a little before opening his eyes. Krycek stood so close it was startling. "You're armed?" 

"Of course. Aren't you?" 

Mulder nodded. "Shoulder and ankle guns," he said, wondering why he was telling Krycek this and frowning at the gleeful grin his confession engendered. "What? How many weapons are you carrying?" 

"Seven." 

"Seven!" Mulder's voice rose to a shriek that he quickly squelched. "Seven?" he repeated softly. "You're carrying seven guns?" 

"Fuck, no. Three guns, two knives, a garrote and a blackjack. Just traveling light. Figured I'd be among friends." He shrugged. "Friend." 

"Friends? Is that what we are?" 

Another shrug. "Does it matter?" He reached over to unzip Mulder's parka. "You're beginning to sweat." 

"It's just lust, you know." Mulder watched the hand lowering his zipper. "Chemical reactions." Krycek stayed silent, easing the parka off Mulder's shoulders. He tossed it behind them on a lounge chair. He pulled Mulder's sweater up over his head, undressing the tall agent like he was a child. Mulder let him, sweater, turtleneck, t-shirt, until he was barechested. "Alex," he breathed when the long-lashed incorrigible started on his jeans. 

Alex unbuttoned and unzipped Mulder, reaching in to fondle the erect and straining cock. "She hadn't been around for some time, and when asked why, she said she'd been too fucking busy, and vice versa." Mulder blinked. "My favorite Dorothy Parkerism." 

"Alex," Mulder repeated in a low groan. 

"You have to take off your boots," Alex told him, letting go and stepping back. 

"Argh," said Mulder, trying to gather his wits enough to control some motor skills. He knelt to untie the heavy boots, watching Krycek efficiently, and quite sensuously, disrobe. Boots off, Mulder stood then froze when a naked Alex grabbed his jeans and peeled them down. 

"Step out," Alex directed and Mulder obeyed. He expected Alex to turn back and kiss him after tossing his jeans on the clothes pile under a stunted banana tree. When Alex didn't, walking away with another head gesture, the bereft feeling Mulder'd had while waiting under the stars flooded back. He didn't want this. Not just a quick, hot fuck in the dark. 

"Wait." Mulder grabbed his arm and turned him around. Alex raised a questioning eyebrow, saying nothing. "I want," Mulder began..."we don't..." He couldn't finish, couldn't say it. He closed his eyes, not able to bear Krycek's puzzled frown. When he opened them, two wide-set eyes stared from just inches away. 

"Is this what you want?" Krycek whispered, leaning closer. "This?" He brushed his lips over Mulder's, then leaned back a bit to check the result. 

"Yes," Mulder breathed, finally articulate. He leaned after Alex for a _real_ kiss, and it was...exquisite. They'd never kissed before, not like this. Their kisses, few as they were, had always been claiming, hard and brutal. An act of possession, not affection. Not like this. Not this sweet, searching intimacy. Not this _sharing_. 

Roaming hands cupped butts and smoothed over backs, caressing hips bucked just enough to rub erections against each other. Magic. 

It was sweet enough to shatter hearts. 

Alex broke it eventually, with a final nip at Mulder's lower lip. "Come on," he said with a grin. "I want to get you dirty." He took Mulder's hand and led the way, walking parallel to the steaming swimming pool toward the other end, where the mudroom was located. 

"Too late," Mulder replied. He'd meant to be sarcastic, to break the mood a bit, bring it back to something they were more used to, but the words came out sad, a bittersweet comment on their lives. 

They stopped Alex, who paused and turned. "I sullied you." It was neither apologetic nor sarcastic, simply statement of fact. "Tarnished that shiny armor of yours." Mulder just stared, saddened by his inability to neither love nor hate purely. Krycek shrugged, slight smile still in place. "It needed tarnishing." He squeezed Mulder's hand and began walking again, bare feet silent on the concrete. 

"Alex," was all Mulder said, following. 

They came to the end of the pool, then passed the snack bar, which was designed like a bamboo hut, complete with signpost showing the direction and mileage to places such as Tahiti and Casablanca. Beyond that was a closed room with a sign on the door that read "Club Mud." 

"No," said Mulder, refusing to go further. Lust was one thing, but this was _tacky_. 

"Yes," said Krycek, unlatching the door. 

It was almost totally dark in the mudroom, no translucent ceiling letting in moonlight. Low-slung shapes hulked in the dark like crouching beasts. "Fuck!" cried Mulder, running into one. 

"Be quiet!" Alex hissed, leading him through a maze of lawn chairs. "Here it is. Careful." He sat on a low cement wall, like the edge of a child's wading pool. Mulder yipped when Alex pulled him down to sit beside him, the cement cold on his bare backside. 

"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" The lust engendered by a naked Krycek was ebbing. He had far too much time to think in this encounter. And in this dark, he couldn't see Krycek's nudity. 

"Get in," replied his nemesis with a plunk. 

Mulder gingerly swung his legs around to hang them into the cold, wet mud. It was thick and gooshy, like...mud. He shivered, and not just from the cold. He had only Krycek's word that this was just...mud...ordinary, benign, mud. He couldn't help picturing...things...primordial eyeless things, pale and sharp, living in this dark, cold ooze, waiting for unsuspecting prey. Like his feet. 

"Careful," he heard from the dark. "It's slippery." 

"I'm supposed to sit in this?" 

"Well, normally, people just sit on the side and smear the mud on. But I've always wanted to immerse myself in it. It feels great, Mulder. Like liquid velvet." 

"It's cold and ooky." 

"Chicken." 

"You know, I have parts that I don't want mud in." 

"Braack, braack braack braack braack." 

Mulder grit his teeth and slid down into the dark, cold ooze. He gasped when the cold hit his genitals, seething at Krycek's soft laughter. "It's cold!" 

"Yeah, great contrast, isn't it?" 

It was true. The warm, humid air and the cold silky mud, coupled with Krycek's hot, velvety voice was the stuff of wet dreams. Or nightmares. It felt...primordial...like ooze from the beginning of time. 

Mulder heard thick slurping and sliding noises, and then felt a smooth touch at his shoulder. "Alex?" 

"I've dreamed about this, you know," said a breathy voice at his ear. "You, naked, in the mud. In the dark." Mulder started when Alex' mud-filled hand slid over his shoulder down his chest, smearing the cold viscous substance over sensitive nipples. Alex smoothed and caressed until Mulder's back and chest were covered. He continued the erotic massage, smoothing layer upon layer of mud on Mulder, until the agent thought he must be as bulked up as Skinner. 

When Krycek's clever hands moved below his waist to caress his balls and cock, Mulder's body and most of his brain readied itself for sex. 

"Alex," he rasped with the small part of his brain that was still working, "I really do have parts that I definitely don't want mud in." 

He heard a chuckle in the dark. "Don't worry, Fox. Polluting the mud with bodily secretions was never part of the dream. After all, people put this stuff on their faces." Alex demonstrated by running a muddy finger down Mulder's nose. "Close your eyes." 

The FBI's most brilliant profiler closed his eyes and leaned back against his problematic lover's sturdy chest, enjoying the gentle facial massage, his desire leveling out to the sexual equivalent of a dull roar. 

"What else do you dream about, Alex?" Mulder whispered, trying to keep his mind off the muddy caresses that were sending him over the brink. The mud was amazing. Not gritty or sandy like _normal_ mud. It was the Godiva Chocolate of mud, silky, smooth and rich. He wished he could eat it. Lick it off Alex. Swirl his tongue around those tiny erect nipples...he groaned and realized with a start that what he was fantasizing doing with his tongue Alex was actually doing with his hands. His chocolate mud covered hands. "Tell me," he insisted, trying hard to stave off ejaculation. 

There was silence for a time. Just the feel of those hands on his chest and belly, rubbing and kneading...hell... _needing_... 

"I dream of marking you," said the raspy voice connected to those tormenting hands. 

"Marking me?" The words sent a jolt of something beyond desire flooding through him. Fear certainly, and enough adrenaline to tremble his muscles and make him weak. He felt his spine melt and knew instinctively that Krycek wasn't talking about hickeys. 

"Yeah," the voice husked. "Sometimes it's with a knife. Not too sharp. Something I'd have to really work at." His fingers traced something on Mulder's left shoulder blade, making him shudder. "A dull _dirty_ knife, Fox, so it'll get infected and leave a wonderful, raised scar." 

"Infected." Mulder felt like he was trembling, though Krycek didn't seem to notice. He thought of altered DNA and alien viruses. "Infected," he repeated. 

"Yeah." Krycek's hands were under the mud now, caressing Mulder's lean hips. "Not so bad you'd die," one hand grasped Mulder's cock, giving it a friendly stroke. "Just enough to hurt bad. That nasty throbbing, you know, that makes you think the only way to stop the pain would be to stop your heart?" The voice was enthusiastic, and Mulder could taste his insanity. 

"God." 

"Sometimes I dream of branding you." 

"Yi-haw," Mulder said quietly, frantically willing the blood to redirect from his cock to his brain, trying to profile, to decide if Krycek was merely fucking with him, or was truly deranged and dangerous. Not that he wasn't dangerous anyway. 

"No, not with a branding iron. Not like you see on TV westerns," His hands sneaked around Mulder's hips, massaging mud into the sensitive crease between hip and thigh, moving inward, forcing his legs farther apart. "In Russia, they have these great horses. Beautiful beasts. Like thoroughbreds. They brand them with wire coat hangers. They twist them into intricate patterns, Cyrillic, heat them almost to the point of melting before pressing them into the horse's flesh. It's so hot that the horses don't even feel it until it's over." He traced another pattern on the meaty part of Mulder's right thigh. Mulder felt Krycek's chin on his shoulder. "I can smell your flesh burning." He wrapped his arms around Mulder, tight. "Makes my mouth water." 

"Alex," Mulder said, trying to keep his voice steady. "You're a sick fuck." 

A heavy sigh. "A boy can dream, can't he?" Alex gave a squeeze and sighed again. "I know you'd never let me." 

Mulder pondered for a moment, feeling on the verge of an epiphany. He'd never _let_ Krycek do anything. Alex was a force of nature, a sociopathic hurricane blowing into Mulder's life, laying waste to his emotions and blowing out again. Until tonight, their encounters had always had a non-consensual tang to them with Mulder feeling overwhelmed and coerced. That Krycek thought Mulder had any kind of say in this...relationship... was an eye opener. 

"Not with a dull knife, anyway," he replied finally, aiming for levity. 

"Wuss." 

"Psychopath." 

"You really think I'm a psychopath?" The voice was wistful, another eye opener. 

"I..." Mulder didn't know how to answer that. Alex Krycek was the one person he'd never been able to profile. He didn't have an inkling as to what motivated him, what he wanted (besides Mulder himself), what forces shaped him. "I think I have no clue as to what you are." 

They sat there in muddy silence, Alex with his arms wrapped around Mulder who grasped his hands, keeping them innocent. 

"Are you the murderer?" Mulder asked the darkness. 

He felt Krycek's snort. "Asking me to confess?" 

"Off the record." 

"Journalism 101, Mulder. There is no off the record." 

"So you're not the murderer?" 

"Do I fit the profile?" 

"You're a professional. The perp is a professional. The perp travels. You travel. The perp has an attraction for this area. And you...well, you seem to really like it here." A breath in his ear, a muddy finger tracing the whorls. 

"I like it here with you." 

"And then there's that." 

More silence, then Mulder felt shaking and realized that Alex was laughing. 

"I was just picturing your report. Your conjecture that the perp is a sexual deviant who goes around the country kidnapping and killing bad people and dumping their bodies here in Colorado merely to lure a certain FBI profiler into the area for hot sex and a roll in the mud." 

"First rule of investigation Alex: Everyone's a suspect." 

"Actually, I like it." He dug his chin into Mulder's shoulder. "It works." 

"Is that a confession?" 

"Would you like me better if it were?" 

"Would I like you better if you were a serial killer?" 

"Yeah. Would you think of me in a more positive light if you thought I was killing horrible people and bringing them to you?" 

"Like a cat with a rat?" 

Mulder could _feel_ the grin against the back of his head. "The cat I had as a kid brought me junebugs. You know those flying beetles? It was awful. She'd bring in these huge half-dead hissing insects and put them in my shoes. Really disgusting." 

"Think how I feel," Mulder told him. He felt a kiss against the back of his head, which was one of the only kissable spots left unmuddied. He wouldn't get his answer. Not this night. "I'm really cold, Alex. Do we have to wait till this dries?" 

"Oh, hell no. It's on so thick it wouldn't dry 'til tomorrow, and then we'd have to take it off with a chisel. Stand up." The solid comfort against his back disappeared with a thick slurping sound, so Mulder followed its instructions and with much slipping and hard concentration, managed to get upright to stand shakily awaiting further instructions. 

Steadying hands on his shoulder turned him. In the dark, Krycek was merely another shadow, slightly darker than the surrounding dark. Shadow hands scraped satiny mud down and off his body in a moving caress that was almost as sensual as the putting on had been. Down his chest, taking particular care to make sure his nipples were mud-free. Pushing mud off his waist and past his hips, kneeling down to sluice it off each leg, then helping him over the cement lip and guiding him into a tin shower. 

The first burst of water was icy and they both yipped then shushed each other, giggling like girls. As the water warmed, so did they, rubbing the other free of mud. Krycek kissed as he cleaned and seemed to spend a lot of time with his hands in the crease of Mulder's ass. "I told you I had parts I didn't want mud in," Mulder said. 

"Don't worry, Fox. I'll make damn sure you're mud-free _here_ once we're in the pool." 

Mulder moaned at the thought. He'd been hard for so long that the ache had come to feel normal. "You're not worried about bodily secretions in the swimming pool?" 

"No. It's a big pool." 

"Are we clean?" 

"Enough," Alex answered and turned off the water. 

The warmth of the pool after the cool mud made them languid and slow, and their lovemaking sweet. Mulder floated, his shoulders anchored on the side of the pool while Alex entered him. They didn't last long, coming one after the other with muted cries. Mulder wrapped his long legs around Krycek's waist to hold him in, staying embraced like that long after Alex had softened and slid out, putting off their real lives until the moon had set and the sky began to lighten. 

Outside they stood shivering in their damp clothes, both unsure of how to leave. 

"Are you the murderer?" Mulder whispered again, pleading. 

Alex just smiled and leaned over to lick Mulder's lower lip. Then he turned and walked away. Mulder watched until he passed the small RV park along the creek and disappeared behind the Lodge. One vehicle was lit from inside, a compact green and white unit that Mulder thought probably cost a special agent's yearly salary and then wondered where he picked up _that_ useless factoid. 

Only a few stars were still visible when Mulder entered his room. Post-coital exhaustion hit him hard. He stripped and hit the bed, hearing nothing until, an hour later, Scully came pounding on his door. 

"They've found another one, Mulder. Here. On the mountain, right behind the Lodge." 

He froze and shivered, from more than just the cold morning air on his bare legs. 

"Time of death?" 

"Won't know until we look. Meet me in the Lobby," she told him, closing the door to let him dress. 

A three-minute shower, more to wake up than to wash Alex off him, gave him too much time to think. It couldn't be true. Not even Alex Krycek could go directly from a murder to that sweet lovemaking. He wasn't that unfeeling. That insane. 

He wished he could pray. Wished he could stop thinking about Krycek's hands. About the feel of Krycek's cock in his ass. About Krycek killing for him. 

Scully greeted him with a large coffee and a cheese Danish. 

"Some boys looking for animal tracks found him," she said. "They wanted to try making plaster casts of tracks. Like they do in the cop shows." 

"And they found a body instead. God." He took a sip of the strong brew. "Please don't tell me they think it's cool." 

"They're so high from the experience they're jumping out of their skins. On the other hand," she reached over to wipe frosting off the corner of his mouth, reminding him of Alex wiping off a last bit of mud this morning, "they've seen enough television to know not to touch anything or mess up the crime scene." 

Mulder tasted the Danish. Scully brought him things to eat that she wouldn't for herself, getting some vicarious satisfaction out of his junk food habit. 

"What do we know?" he asked her, chewing and walking. She was dressed in what he thought of as Colorado drag: blue jeans, turtleneck and flannel shirt, hiking boots. A knit cap covered most of her copper hair, leaving just a wild fringe of orange. She'd gotten ready quickly, too. 

"We know that these two boy scouts know more about preserving a crime scene than most first-year rookies do." A Mulder's raised eyebrows she added, "One of them took pictures of the frost while the other ran for a phone. They say there were footprints." 

It was full light now, and any trace of frost was quickly burning off. 

"What kind of camera? Any chance of decent pictures?" 

"Your basic 35mm point and click. Depends a lot on what the light was like. The film's being couriered to Denver, even as we speak." 

They were walking around the end of the pool building, and Mulder almost had a panic attack. He shushed Scully's concern, chalking it up to the altitude. She was skeptical. He'd been running here for weeks. 

Another fear hit him suddenly. Not of Alex as perpetrator, but Alex as victim. 

"Scully, have you seen the body yet?" 

"No, Mulder. I'm just telling you what the Sheriff told me." 

Oh god oh god oh god. The last view he'd had of Alex had been walking around this corner. He stopped, unable to breathe, suddenly gasping like he'd swallowed a frog. 

"Mulder!" Scully concerned, setting him down on a rock, head between his knees. 

"We have to solve this case," he gasped. " _I_ have to solve this case." 

It took a few minutes before he could walk again, and control was tenuous. 

Oh god oh god oh god. He thought it like a mantra, climbing up the mountain, the clay slick from last night's snow making the going slow. 

The crime scene was in sight of the Lodge if you had good eyesight and squinted. They reached it in just a few minute's time. 

The victim was black, and Mulder almost wet himself in relief. 

Scully took over the crime scene while Mulder just inhaled the ambience, trying to taste Krycek. Or not. Looking for something that would tell him yea or nay if his lover, his love, was involved in this obscenity that wasn't. Quite. 

"Holy shit!" said the deputy when they finally turned the body over. He looked amazed at all the eyes looking at him. "Don't you know who this is?" 

"Enlighten us," said Mulder. 

"It's Anton Graves. You know. That preacher guy. The one who leads that cult, AA" 

"Alcoholics Anonymous?" said Mulder, incredulous. 

"No!" Disgusted "Angels of the Apocalypse. The ones who say the Rapture's coming on New Year's Day." 

"I've read about them, Mulder," said Scully. "They're the ones who got thrown out of Israel. Now they're saying that Boulder is the new Jerusalem." 

More pictures, and plaster casts, were taken, the crime scene gone over and, as expected, nothing of moment was found. 

"He's local?" asked Mulder of the deputy. 

"Well, he's been in Boulder now for the past several months, gathering followers. Folks've been talking like it's gonna be the next Jonestown." 

"Another monster," commented Scully. 

"When did he die?" Mulder asked her. 

"Hard to tell, it's been so cold. But based on lividity, I'd say he's been dead less than 12 hours." 

"How long's he been _here_?" 

"There's frost on the body so at least three hours. No more than six." 

Mulder looked green. With that time frame, Krycek could have easily been the perp. 

"This is our break, Scully," he said, heart heavy. 

* * *

"Motive's the key, Scully," he insisted on their way to Boulder to interview everyone remotely connected to the Reverend Graves. "Motive and opportunity." Krycek had opportunity. And, perhaps, an insane motive. 

"Motive, Mulder? We _know_ the motive. He's killing bad people. Really bad people. He's living out a cop's wet dream." 

"But why these bad people, Scully? The world's full of monsters. They're connected somehow. There's a thread. We just have to find it, and it'll lead us to the murderer." 

Mulder investigated with a vengeance. If it were Krycek, he needed to be the one to bring him down and bring him in. He tried not to think of what that would do to his career, his reputation. If it weren't Krycek, he needed to prove that, too. He had to know. He brainstormed with Scully, nagged the Bureau data techs and bribed the Gunmen. 

"The Three Stooges, Mulder?" Scully asked him after one bizarrely convoluted conversation with Melvin Frohike who, after twenty minutes of cajoling, finally admitted to wanting Mulder to call him back. 

"They don't argue with me." 

"Yes, they do." 

"Well, they don't call me 'Spooky' behind my back." 

"Mulder," she looked almost sad, "yes, they do." 

He frowned. "They don't insist on a warrant before they hack information for me." 

"Oh, that explains it." 

Mulder's side of the conversation with Frohike was stranger even than hers had been. It consisted of many "But whats..." and "But whys..." seasoned with a few "No shits" and much scribbling. 

"What do you know about a writer named Jolene Dupre?" he asked when he hung up, excited. //It's not Alex, it's not Alex, it's not Alex.// 

Scully looked interested. "Jolene's done for the true crime genre what Mario Puzo did for the Mafia." At Mulder's raised eyebrows she added, "made it _sexy_." 

"Jolene? You know her?" 

"Jolene is how she signs her books. I met her briefly at a lecture and book signing in Georgetown." 

"She any good?" 

"Well, besides making criminals seem sexy and sympathetic, she does have a knack for getting people to talk to her. She got confessions from that baby killer/cannibal out of Georgia that a team of psychiatrists, three prosecutors and his mother missed." She fished a drumstick out of the bucket of chicken setting in the middle of Mulder's bed. "She connected to our killer?" 

"She interviewed Graves three weeks ago in Denver." 

"No crime in that, Mulder." 

"Six of her victims had autographed copies of her books on their shelves. She was in the same hotel at the same time with four others. Besides Graves, she'd also interviewed the pimp and the faith healer. Haven't found any connection with the rest, but I'll bet you donuts we do." 

Scully paused in her chewing and swallowed, shaking her head. "You can't seriously think Jolene's the killer. Have you seen her? She's smaller than I am!" 

"So, she has an accomplice." At his partner's skeptical look he added, "She's the connection, Scully. The _only_ connection." He grabbed a breast from out of the bucket and gnawed on it, pacing. High with relief. "What else do you know about her?" 

"She has a fear of flying. In her talk she mentioned how much she liked traveling in her RV. She," Scully paused, eyes widening. She looked up at Mulder. "She said that she researches the next book while she crisscrosses the country promoting the current one. She has a driver." 

"In an RV." Mulder's mind flashed to the last morning he'd seen Krycek, to a green and white RV with its lights on, even at that early hour. 

They stared at each other for a moment before Mulder grabbed the phone and began to stab out numbers. "Sir? We know who it is." 

* * *

The rest was easy. Jolene and her ex-con driver were both weirdly serene about being found out. For the writer, the prospect of a trial and prison, even death row, was simply more research. She'd already taken the ultimate step from trying to understand the mind of a serial killer to becoming a serial killer. The driver, a former gang leader who'd spent most of his teens and all of his twenties in prison for murder, had found religion in prison. He saw himself, and her, as God's instrument, avenging angels. He could avenge in prison, too. 

Dumping the victims near Idaho Springs was just a quirk. Jolene liked the resort and had a serious slot machine habit that she indulged in the nearby gambling town of Blackhawk. 

They were both crazy as Krycek's junebugs. 

The forensic team found enough evidence in the green and white RV to convict them many, many times over. Police officials across the country met the news of the arrest with mixed emotions. 

* * *

After almost two months in Colorado, Virginia's wet cold was biting and miserable. Mulder entered his apartment feeling like a stranger. Something was different. He gazed at his fish swimming merrily in their algae-free tank. He could've sworn there were only three when he'd left for Colorado. Now it was full of brightly colored neons and silvery angels. A mouth-watering smell drifted from his _clean_ kitchen, and there was a red rose in a crystal bud vase setting on his clutter-free coffee table. 

"Frohike?" he called out tentatively. The little hacker had promised to feed his fish. That he'd cleaned and cooked and restocked was... uncharacteristic. 

No answer. Puzzled, Mulder made his way into the bedroom where he beheld a long, naked body stretched out on its side reading _Naked Rage_ by Jolene Dupre. 

Mulder dropped his bags in the doorway, and began to disrobe. He was naked by the time he reached the bed, a trail of clothes marking his progress. He plucked the book out of Alex Krycek's elegant hands and tossed it away. Alex cocked an eyebrow at Mulder's growing erection, licked his lips then slowly stretched out on his back. 

"Home is the hero," he started to quote. 

Mulder shut him up. 

end...

* * *

August 1999   
Rating: NC-17 for muddy sex between pretty boys.   
Pairing: M/K   
Spoilers: This takes place in some nebulous time before the "Tunguska/Terma" debacle.   
Author's Note: This is a sequel to "In Hot Water," which was never intended to have a sequel, and takes place approximately three weeks later.   
Summary: Nonie insisted that the boys play in the mud, so this is for her. There's schmoopy angst (or angsty schmoop), a little sex and a lot of mud. Oh yeah, and murders to solve.   
Feedback: [email removed]   
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not damaged. Not exploited for money. The Indian Springs Lodge, including Club Mud, isn't mine either but, unlike our two heroes, is real. I highly recommend it.   
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